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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23237737">get some exercise/get me exorcised</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/s0dafucker/pseuds/s0dafucker'>s0dafucker</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Crack Treated Seriously, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Pining, Recreational Drug Use, Semi-explicit sex, The Corruption, Trans Elias Bouchard, a lil bit.. just bc i love that mf, does this count as crack?? is this a crack fic????, i always feel like a cop typing that out, i always forget to put an angst tag on shit but ya its sad, og!elias, once again treating the timeline like some very wet clay, welcome to my stupid little pottery wheel, what did u expect really theyre both dead</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 13:53:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,855</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23237737</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/s0dafucker/pseuds/s0dafucker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><i>i got so fucking romantic, i apologize, let me smoke your weed- no wait</i><br/><br/>elias drags on his cigarette and michael snaps a hairtie against his wrist once, twice, before he pulls his hair up into a slapdash ponytail, the back of his neck exposed. it’s damp with sweat, his hair so light it’s barely-there, and elias is seized with a wild, reckless urge to kiss him, to press his mouth to that pale patch of skin.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Elias Bouchard/Michael Shelley</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>47</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>get some exercise/get me exorcised</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>love me a good vague nonsense au<br/>the only canon timeline thing i left in place is elias getting jonah'd in the mid/late 90s everything else is bullshit just roll w it</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>artifact storage is just a big fucking warehouse. all that’s keeping it from being a storage unit is the lack of roll-up door, no beaten-up padlock- but the classy feeling of the rest of the institute is noticeably absent, on this floor dedicated to piles of shit no one wants. like the world’s worst rummage sale. filing down here is barely even a job, really- elias got transferred from research seven months ago, has been sticking tags on cursed armoires for the better half of a year, and he’s met his supervisor maybe twice. </p>
<p>(he <em> has </em> met james, though, been called in for yet another performance meeting that quickly devolved into a lecture on his dress code violation, and <em> decorum</em>, though what exactly he violated had never come up. his trousers were too short, maybe? revealed too much ankle? there was a sort of drama to the proceedings, honestly. james has the most unsettling eyes, so blue they’re almost white.)</p>
<p>(it had gone on for so long that elias genuinely didn’t know if he’d be able to leave before he clocked out, until james got a call and answered with something bitchy about- alimony, maybe? sounded like alimony- and waved for elias to go.)</p>
<p>there’s a new doll on the incomplete shelf of leitners, leaning against a heavy-looking volume leaking something black and filthy, and elias sort of likes it. it’s victorian, looks like, with these vacant eyes- something in him recoils from touching it. probably for the best.</p>
<p>‘would anyone notice if you just- stole it?’ michael asks, when elias shows it to him. he shrugs.</p>
<p>‘i mean, no one comes down here.’</p>
<p>michael smiles, slow, like it’s something to savor. ‘i do.’</p>
<p>(it's unsettling, that smile, with his teeth crooked and too big for his mouth, but it never fails to put elias at ease.)</p>
<p>‘what do you even do in the archives?’</p>
<p>‘should you really be rolling on that?’</p>
<p>‘don’t answer a question with a question. it’s pretentious.’</p>
<p>michael snickers. he has a point about the table, but it’s the only flat surface that isn’t piled high with boxes, so it’ll have to do. </p>
<p>‘you got a light?’</p>
<p>his fingers are still busy finishing up the joint, finicky little work- ‘you never answered.’</p>
<p>‘hm?’</p>
<p>elias licks it, and it’s clumsy but he was never the one who did the joints in uni, he had friends for that- ‘what do you <em> do </em>in the archives. besides request access to weird cursed shit.’</p>
<p>‘lots of talking,' he says, like it's an inside joke; 'do you have a light? i left mine in my desk.’</p>
<p>‘why the fuck was it in your desk to begin with,’ elias mutters, but he’s already digging through his jacket pockets and coming up with a heavy old zippo he got- </p>
<p>somewhere. he must’ve got it from somewhere, though presently he can’t quite remember where; it doesn’t matter, not really, ‘cause it lights, and michael lets him have the first hit, ever the gentleman. </p>
<p>‘why’s no one allowed down there? in the archives?’ he asks into the dusty air, as they’re burning down to elias’s shitty half-assed filter.</p>
<p>michael laughs his weird little laugh and murmurs, ‘what’s with all the questions?’</p>
<p>(<em> again, </em>with the question-question thing, but elias is coming up, and so he just shrugs. ‘i was wondering, s’all.’)</p>
<p>‘it’s boring down there, really. i’ll trade you.’ it’s close quarters in here, folded up between ghost furniture and boxes of shit, and michael crowds into elias’s space, his teeth like crumbling headstones, like shattered pearls. elias winds one of his curls around his finger, watching the pendulum of an ancient clock behind him swinging off-beat. he tugs gently on michael’s hair. </p>
<p>‘it’s boring here, too.’ michael giggles, and it’s dissonant and sweet and he shifts like he means to sit back, but elias hooks an arm around his shoulders and holds him there. ‘just for a sec, okay? ‘s like a hug. i want a fuckin’ hug. before we gotta work.’ and michael doesn’t say anything, just shoves his head into the juncture of elias’s neck and shoulder and nods. </p>
<p>elias puts a vase into a box and the box on a table and the table isn’t big enough to move so he leans against a filing cabinet and looks at this dumb fucking table like he’s appraising it, or something. </p>
<p>(michael said somebody was coming, and sometimes michael just <em> knows </em>shit, fuck if elias knows how, so he’s leaning back on his heels and trying to make sure his sweater’s tucked in, trying to look like he’s getting something done-</p>
<p>-it’s angela from research, looking for the new urn they got last week-</p>
<p>(-the ashes never empty out? they just keep coming and you end up having to vacuum up ashes out of the breakroom carpet because <em> someone else’s </em>supervisor catches you demonstrating-)</p>
<p>-and she’s in and out like that, all pleasant smiles, and elias sinks into an armchair with a weird stain on it and takes a deep breath.)</p>
<p>‘let’s go on break,’ michael says, and elias lets him talk his ear off about whatever it is this time, some documentary he caught on bbc early in the morning. he does something with the breakroom coffee, makes it taste better than when elias makes it himself. </p>
<p>there’s an ant colony trying to move into elias’s fucking flat.</p>
<p>(and it’s the oddest fucking thing- not the ants, it’s may- but that they make him feel <em> lonely. </em>acutely, a needle-point through his chest to that soft bit of his heart, this hollow sort of feeling. those fucking ants are the most company this place has seen since he’s moved in.)</p>
<p>he has to leave a message for the maintenance man, <em> could you send an exterminator </em>and such, but then there isn’t anything to do but sit on the kitchen floor and light one of his pre-rolls and watch them, one writhing black mass. so close together he can’t tell where one ends and the others begin. he stubs his joint out on a pile of them and the embers glow orange-red and set a couple alight. </p>
<p>‘how’s your back?’ michael asks, over cigarettes on the front steps, and elias manages a laugh, even if it sounds more like a papercut. </p>
<p>‘shit. it’s always shit.’ his smoke’s mostly done and he doesn’t have to clock in for another fifteen minutes- he lights another, trying to stretch out the shaky hands too-aware un-aware of his body feeling, goosebumps ebbing and flowing and the weight of the humidity, spring storm kind of claustrophobia, all in his hair and under his skin. his back aches, for the fucking record. the damp gets all up inside his bones, the dull throbbing radiating out, all those benign horrors of having a body. he drags on his cigarette and michael snaps a hairtie against his wrist once, twice, before he pulls his hair up into a slapdash ponytail, the back of his neck exposed. it’s damp with sweat, his hair so light it’s barely-there, and elias is seized with a wild, reckless urge to kiss him, to press his mouth to that pale patch of skin. </p>
<p><em> how’s your back. </em> why does he care. why does he care enough to tilt his head when elias cracks his knuckles, stretches and cracks every bone in his lower back, why does he ask <em> how’s your back </em> and <em> got a light </em>and why, pray fucking tell, does he look at elias with his eyes sweet and piercing and grin with his cigarette held in the corner of his mouth and say, ‘i’ll roll this time, if you want-’ and why does elias suddenly want to shove him. </p>
<p>(impulsive, he’s always been impulsive, always has to get a handle on whatever swells up inside him like a river rising, like a pot boiling over, he must’ve thrown another fucking log on the fire because there’s sparks up in his throat- under his skin-)</p>
<p>(<em> kiss someone break something throw a punch </em>)</p>
<p>michael keeps his promise and rolls a joint and it’s uneven but it’ll do, no filter but it’ll do, elias’s fingertips burnt but they’re been through worse. michael’s got his right ear pierced. elias pretends he’s never noticed. elias takes a lock of his hair between his fingers and says, quietly, ‘i had long hair. when i was a kid.’</p>
<p>neglects to mention the nature of his childhood, omits the details that sit weighty on his chest (-ha fucking ha<em>, </em>except they don’t anymore- the institute health insurance took care of that-), and michael nods, with his green-blue eyes stark and impossibly bright. elias winds his curl around his finger like a telephone wire, thinks of the last payphone he used to try and call his mother. his voice was deep enough by then that she might not have even recognized it, if she’d ever heard the voicemail. </p>
<p>‘why’d you cut it?’ his voice is lazy, floating. monet’s water lilies.</p>
<p>‘didn’t feel right, i s'pose.’ </p>
<p>michael reaches out- halting, unsure- and one of his broad palms pushes the hair out of elias’s eyes, the uneven cut of a man with cheap scissors and perpetually trembling hands. he should start smoking before he does it, really, or else just get over himself and find a barber. michael’s hand is warm. he’s running his fingers over elias’s scalp, and it feels- </p>
<p>elias shuts his eyes and it shouldn’t be as intense as it is, right, just michael rubbing his head gently, just the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears, just the quiet buzzing of sensation. </p>
<p>‘i think it's good short. it suits you.’ just his voice. crackling like static. a hum like a radiator. </p>
<p>(oh, fuck, elias is going to cry in fucking artifact storage. he's going to get stupid and sappy over fucking michael, who's a fucking <em> weirdo, </em>who smells like damp wood and old paper and all the shit that clings to the archives, michael with his ink-stained fingers and his uncanny eyes.)</p>
<p>elias doesn't know how long they stay like that, only that eventually he leans his head on michael's chest and they're all folded up together behind a cabinet or something, tucked away in some cramped corner. </p>
<p>the ants are still there when he goes home. (‘home’. he hates his flat, really. it’s too expensive and too sparse and never heats properly in the winter.) they’re gathered on the kitchen counter, and trailing in black lines to the bathroom, the cracks of the windows. it makes elias sort of sick. (he hopes the falling feeling in his stomach is sickness.) </p>
<p>he taps an unlit cigarette on the kitchen counter, climbs out to the fire escape to smoke it, bounces his leg until the whole damn thing rattles. </p>
<p>james calls him into his office, wearing that creepy smile- placid and plastered-on, too polite to be genuine. most bosses have something like it, elias supposes. no reason for it to make him uneasy. 'have a seat,' he says, and for all the pleasantries it feels like a hiss, sinks under elias's skin and fizzles unpleasantly. </p>
<p>(he tries to listen, swear to god, but something about james's voice makes him tune out so completely- he thinks he catches <em> keep up the good work </em> but it could just be wishful thinking. his spine aches, for a second, with the unforgiving posture the shitty chair enforces, and james frowns; oddly, it's then when he feels the most lucid, when james is silent and there's a crease between his eyebrows and elias is thinking about how badly he'd like to go smoke, to put his stupid shitty body at ease. and then the low droning of his voice starts up again and elias shifts so his back complains a bit less.)</p>
<p>it's on day four of not seeing michael- not in the breakroom, not on the steps in the morning- no one he’s asked says he’s called off- that elias finally ventures down to the archives. </p>
<p>he isn't really sure why. he's not worried, not really- maybe he's just bored. lonely. worried. same thing. he doesn’t like it down here. </p>
<p>it’s dim and cramped and at least artifact storage is <em> ventilated, </em>at least the dust has somewhere to go instead of clinging to piles of disorganized books and haphazard shelves and making elias’s fucking sinuses act up. the place looks half-deserted. </p>
<p>‘’scuse me? i don’t think you’re s’posed to be down here,’</p>
<p>elias scowls when he turns around, because the kid at the end of the corridor looks younger than him, and even less like he works here. james would have a field day dress coding this motherfucker and his beat-up leather jacket.</p>
<p>‘i’m looking for michael,’ he says, and he’s pissed to see the goth return his glare with just as much force. he must think it’s intimidating, with all that metal in his face.</p>
<p>he looks elias up and down and says, ‘who’s asking?’</p>
<p>‘does it matter? i’m his co-worker. i’d like to know where he is.’</p>
<p>‘he’s not here.’ the kid looks back down at his book like that’s it. elias is very sure that is definitely not it. </p>
<p>‘listen,’ he says, marching up to this- teenager, it looks like- with every bit of trust-fund brat conviction he learned to emulate in uni, the i’ll-phone-daddy attitude that used to get his friends let into clubs; ‘i don’t know who you think you are, but i’ve worked here for two years, i’m elias bouchard, i’m a filing clerk, and i’d like to know why michael shelley hasn’t been in for almost a week. rosie said he’s not out sick.’</p>
<p>the kid looks up. he’s taller than elias, probably six foot, but he’s too bristling-angry to care much. ‘i’m gerard delano,’ he says coolly. ‘i’m an archival assistant.’</p>
<p>‘like hell you are.’ elias must look like the world’s most spoiled brat right now, with his graduation-present dress shoes and air of petulance, but he glowers up at gerard with everything he’s got.</p>
<p>the book snaps shut, and gerard rolls his eyes. his eyeliner’s smudged, like it’s going on a day or two of wear. ‘it doesn’t matter. gertrude left me in charge of the archives for a little while since sasha’s out, and i as good as work here.’</p>
<p>‘<em>as good as </em> isn’t the same thing as being on the books.’ he shelves the heavy volume and elias watches his posture relax, minutely, and he notices for the first time the hand-poked eyes tattooed on the kid’s hands. they creep him out.</p>
<p>‘i don’t know where michael is. he’s out on field research with gertrude, who left <em> me </em>strict instructions not to let anyone poke around down here.’</p>
<p>elias blinks. ‘field research? he works in the archives. what d’you lot need to research in the field?’</p>
<p>gerard’s tired gaze implies this was just the thing he wanted to avoid. frankly, elias doesn’t care.</p>
<p>(it goes on like that for a moment or two, elias at his full height of five-six doing everything but crossing his arms and stomping his foot like a child; gerard looking patiently down at him before he finally sighs and rolls his dark eyes and mutters, ‘come on, then, you can make a fucking statement.’)</p>
<p>‘what?’</p>
<p>‘might as well get it on tape for gertrude,’ he says, more to himself than anything, and elias’s eyes fall on a tape recorder on one of the desks, the tape already spinning.</p>
<p>‘gerard?’</p>
<p>gerard’s gaze follows his, but all he does is nod, looking pleasantly surprised, and say, ‘right then,’ and a beat later- ‘call me gerry.’</p>
<p>gerry takes a seat at the desk, shoves his unkempt hair out of his eyes, and looks up at elias, still standing stiffly across from him trying to process this shift in mood. ‘pull up a seat.’</p>
<p>he lights a cigarette, and offers elias the pack, and they sit with the tape recorder still spinning between them, and gerry says, ‘so tell me about your bug thing.’</p>
<p>‘what?’</p>
<p>‘you’ve got-’ he waves his hand vaguely- ‘the Corruption on you, a bit. like something’s happened to you. give me a statement and i’ll have a decent excuse to tell you where michael’s at. ‘m not s’posed to tell anyone about smirke’s 14 if they haven’t encountered any.’ he drags on his cigarette and picks up the tape recorder and says, more to it then elias, ‘statement of elias bouchard, regarding-?’</p>
<p>‘there’s an ant infestation in my kitchen,’ elias offers, and gerry nods. </p>
<p>‘good enough. recorded directly from subject.’ gerry gestures with his cigarette hand for elias to go on. </p>
<p>‘um-’ gerry shoves the ashtray at him. </p>
<p>‘oh, yeah,’ he sets the tape recorder down and fixes elias with his dark gaze and for a moment he looks older than he is, somehow- ‘tell me about your experience with the Corruption.’</p>
<p>(elias’s nicotine buzz feels like it doubles, goosebumps up his spine, and the words spill out of him unbidden-)</p>
<p>(he didn’t <em> know </em>it was odd, his childhood, but gerry’s kind and he makes interested noises when he should, and doesn’t mock elias about once being a little boy whose only friends were bugs.)</p>
<p>(he says, ‘there are species of butterflies that drink human tears, you know,’ in the same tone he tried to tell his mother, once, and gerry pauses with a cigarette halfway to his mouth and whispers, ‘no.’)</p>
<p>(yes.)</p>
<p>(-it tumbles out that elias has apparently had some <em> close calls, </em>as gerry puts it, with something large and horrible and bug-shaped.)</p>
<p>‘what’d you do?’ he asks gerry, as he’s popping the tape out and scribbling a label on it. ‘what was that?’</p>
<p>gerry heaves a sigh that seems far too world-weary for his teenaged face and when he sits back down at the archivist’s desk, it will be a very long time before he stands up again.</p>
<p>the exterminator has taken care of the ants by the time elias gets to his flat. he sort of misses them. he thought he might. </p>
<p>he misses <em> michael. </em>he’s not the only one, with the way gerry talked about him- the hero-worship voice came out in full force to tell elias what a brave thing it is he and gertrude are doing, though to elias it had just seemed stupid. he isn’t sure the flesh, as gerry had described it, is worth going all the way to goddamned america just to keep tabs on.</p>
<p>he sort of understands the kid, though. he had asked, mid-way through some explanation of gertrude’s greatest hits, if gerry had a mother of his own to be going on about, and the kid had turned the whole glaring force of the eye on him, for a moment, and said, ‘she’s dead,’ in a tone that left no room for further questions. so no wonder he’s picked up this encyclopedic knowledge of all things spooky.</p>
<p>elias rolls over in bed. he’s gotta buy more pot.</p>
<p>(‘where are you from?’ michael shelley asks, into the cold air. </p>
<p>‘what?’</p>
<p>he glances over, his long arms draped over the railing. ‘where are you from?’ he’s play-acting badly at nonchalance. </p>
<p>elias is tipsy, trying half-heartedly to enjoy a cigarette away from the office christmas party, and he stutters out- ‘blackpool,’ to the new archival assistant in the jingle bell sweater. he nods, and elias bites back a remark about the silver tinsel threaded through his long hair. </p>
<p>‘huh. i went to uni in lancaster,’ he offers, ‘so we could’ve been close by.’</p>
<p>‘i went to oxford,’ elias says, and he means it to be cold but michael just shrugs amiably and stares up at the stars.</p>
<p>‘you want a fag?’ elias blurts out, a beat too late, because that’s got to be the reason the new guy in the archives is standing out here making conversation in the first place; michael blinks, owlish with his light eyes, and says, ‘sure.’</p>
<p>elias convinces him to put a bottle of champagne up his shirt and somehow gertrude doesn’t notice- he’s half-sure he saw james look at them funny when they slipped out to smoke for the second time in 30 minutes, but no one finds them on the balcony a few floors up, elias drunkenly teaching michael the office gossip.)</p>
<p>he doesn’t remember his dreams in the morning. a vague sense of being kissed, maybe, and the feeling that something is horribly wrong, and it isn’t until his morning cigarette out on the rickety fire escape that he remembers god is real and he’s crueler than elias’s mother ever could’ve imagined. <em> they’re kind of like colors, </em> gerry had said, and elias had laughed a serrated-knife sort of laugh and said <em> that’s a fucked up way to think about gods.  </em></p>
<p>he tips his cigarette up to the sky and tries not to think of the weight in gerry’s voice when he’d muttered <em> you’d do well to quit the institute, you know, </em>and refused to elaborate. </p>
<p>michael is out on the front steps holding an unlit cigarette when elias rounds the corner and if something in his chest seizes, ugly and sudden and painful-</p>
<p>it doesn’t matter, it really doesn’t, especially when michael’s smiling that horrible crooked smile and elias’s face feels sunburnt, when he’s tripping over his words explaining he was waiting so they could smoke together and elias is biting his cheek hard enough to draw blood and michael’s standing but elias is throwing himself down on the stone steps and hitting his tailbone a little too hard and saying, ‘it’s good to see you,’ in a tone he hopes isn’t as strained as it feels.</p>
<p>michael leans over and lights his cigarette and elias looks anywhere but his eyes and his broken-glass teeth and his wild hair and instead tries to remember how to draw breath.</p>
<p>‘d’you want to get drinks tonight?’</p>
<p>‘what?’</p>
<p>(elias nearly drops his fucking labelmaker.)</p>
<p>his shoulder cracks, too-loud, and michael pulls back, concern written all over his face- elias could scream- and elias mutters, ‘it’s fine, i’m fine,’ tries to muscle this too tall idiot into pinning him a little better, tries to cling tight to michael’s sweater before either of them lose their nerve. it’s a hard wall, he’s got shit bones, he doesn’t know how to explain he doesn’t mind aching like this. he doesn’t know how to explain michael could shove him through the drywall and he’d still be aching for more. he doesn’t know how to explain himself.</p>
<p>michael leans down and kisses him and the pressure on his chest shifts- elias wants to ask if he ever knew any wrestling holds, in a burst of tipsy horny hysteria, in the sudden rush of feeling like he needs to be <em> held, </em>he needs to be steadied and grounded and he’s barely kissing back, too drunk-sloppy and distracted. god, he isn’t doing this right. </p>
<p>(they hadn’t even been doing this, not until the cab ride home, not until michael looked over with that smile that’s so sickly-sweet elias’s skin crawls and he becomes tangibly aware of his blood rushing between his ears, and michael had pushed the hair off elias’s forehead and there was something horrible and tender in his eyes, like a fresh bruise, like an exposed vein, and elias had kissed him, before he could say anything.)</p>
<p>(he was <em> terrified </em>of anything that could come out of michael’s mouth when he looked like that, honey-soft and blood-wet, looking at elias like he hung the moon and stars and did it all just-so, did it all just so the moon could shine right through the window of this shitty cab and stab elias right in the chest, straight-through. he could barely breathe for the fear. he thinks it was fear.)</p>
<p>so he kissed him and now he’s kissing him, he’s <em> kissing </em>michael in his ant-nest apartment all shoved up into the wall like they don’t have any time, like they don’t have the rest of their lives, like the only thing that exists is elias’s back against the wall, michael’s arms bracketing him in, pressing into his chest and his shoulders and all those fault lines, pressure points, the shadow of a promise of pain. elias can take that pain. he likes it, likes being fucked-out and sore and speaking of- </p>
<p>he gropes blindly for michael’s cock, thinking or maybe saying something about <em> less sappy shit and more moving along </em>, more more more and there’s a moment where he’s palming the front of michael’s cheap khakis and getting hopelessly lost in a fistful of his hair and then michael mumbles, ‘don’t have a dick, sorry,’ spits it out like a knocked-loose tooth with this note of amusement-fear, slightly hysterical, like it’s a joke split right down the knife’s edge, and elias says, ‘me neither,’ and they trade nervous laughter into each other’s mouths like prayers.  </p>
<p>this is stupid. this is so goddamned stupid. elias doesn’t fuck his co-workers and he can’t afford to lose this job or go to HR or what<em> ever </em>but michael’s a better kisser than he expected and he hasn’t been kissed in a very long time. </p>
<p>somehow michael, wiry archival assistant michael, has the strength hidden away to pick elias up, arms slung haphazardly around his back and his ass and he giggles when elias squeaks, surprised, muscle memory making him remember to link his ankles in time- ‘you fucking idiot,’ elias gasps next to his ear, ‘this is my flat.’</p>
<p>they figure it out, clinging to each other like drunk newlyweds, ‘cause the place isn’t that big and michael can <em> find a fucking bedroom, as a matter of fact, </em> and he tosses elias on the bed like he weighs nothing at all and isn’t that just a feeling. isn’t that fucking something. he’s kissing all tipsy-sloppy down elias’s throat and elias is tugging his hair so hard it’s really gotta hurt and telling him in an unsteady voice to <em> take his stupid sweater off, </em>because it’s seventies inspired in all the worst ways and is keeping elias from his skin, so they intermission- </p>
<p>to sit all bent-kneed and starry-eyed on elias’s bed and look at each other and elias leans over and nearly falls in his mission to run his fingers over micheal’s top surgery scars and splay his hands out over his thighs and bury his face in michael’s shoulder and kiss him, where he’s soft and smells like sweat. elias thinks he mutters, ‘hold me,’ or something like it, and so michael pins him down and takes him apart, cuts the right wires to make everything coiled-tight spring loose, teeth to his throat, knuckles to his bones, and elias whines up into him, cries into his mouth; and michael holds him, tight, so he doesn’t have space to shatter. </p>
<p>they share a cigarette. elias digs a pack out of his bedside table, feels his muscles tighten against the strain; michael watches him light it, his eyes heavy-lidded and warm. it’s <em> good. </em>elias feels good. michael props himself up on his elbows to suck the smoke from elias’s mouth and for a long while, nothing else exists. nothing will exist except michael, when elias curls up in his arms and reaches down his pants in a few hours, when they slip out to the fire escape and try to roll a joint with jittery hands in twenty minutes, when they share a cigarette in bed, and elias doesn’t worry, doesn’t think, doesn’t speak. </p>
<p>tomorrow, he will. tomorrow he will arrive to the institute ten minutes later than usual and michael will pretend he isn’t wearing the same clothes and when they don’t speak it will hurt so acutely it takes the breath from elias’s lungs. elias will close his eyes and think about michael’s voice saying <em> i’m in love with you </em>and michael will ask, halting, if he wants to take their break together, and it’ll be more or less the same. </p>
<p>and in a few short weeks michael will pack a bag for russia and push elias’s hair out of his face so he can bend down and press a kiss to his forehead, fleeting and awkward and painfully sweet, and he’ll whisper, ‘i’ll miss you.’</p>
<p>and elias will mumble back something about it only being a few days. something like <em> don’t say that. </em> something he will never be able to remember but will know with unflinching certainty is not <em> i’ll miss you too.  </em></p>
<p>(elias will stand on the fire escape and consider, briefly, throwing himself off. just for a second. <em> l'appel du vide </em> or something. he stares down past his trembling fingers and bloody cuticles and considers the pavement.)</p>
<p>and in a month elias will take the syrup-slow elevator up to james wright's office, straightening his tie, and he'll try to muster up something resembling politeness and it won't matter. james will hold a letter opener in his manicured hands like it doesn't mean a thing and elias will grit his teeth and cry, he'll cry like he hasn't done in years, and he'll cry until he doesn't have eyes to cry with. and it won't matter at all.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>dropping this in the month of 4/20 .. stoner rights </p>
<p>jonny: these two 20 smthn y/o kids died to serve the interests of people that didnt care abt them and powers they didnt know existed and were replaced by things wearing their faces and no one noticed they were gone<br/>me: goes batshit insane</p></blockquote></div></div>
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